Mother: Cyberbullying, fat shaming led up to fight that injured daughter

SOUTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Twin McDowell, gave Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne cellphone video of the student taunting and then hitting her daughter.%

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“I was hurt. I allowed myself to allow my daughter to go get an education and to be protected in a school house and she wasn’t protected,” McDowell said.

McDowell said her daughter Ashlee Pressley wound up with a black eye after she was attacked last Monday in the Creekside High School cafeteria after refusing repeatedly to be provoked into a fight.

But the mother said Ashlee's feelings, her self-image had already taken a beating in fat-shaming and cyberbullying in social media for several days before that.

“She said that she was humiliated. She was crying. she was upset. She didn’t want to go back to school again,” McDowell said.

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The mother said she had gone to the school roughly a week and a half before and had numerous contacts with the school about the cyberbullying and had a meeting set for last Tuesday.

But the fight happened before class Monday.

Fulton County Schools’ spokesperson Susan Hale said the school system is still investigating but the school system did not have sufficient information to run down what was happening before the fight because the McDowell described a male student as the cyberbully and did not provide a name.

McDowell said the male was part of a group harassing her daughter and she thinks the school had enough to go on

“I thought I was doing right,” McDowell said.

McDowell said she's not sure if the alleged attacker was suspended even one day but she has seen her on Ashlee's bus every school day but one since the fight.

McDowell said Ashlee was a bully herself in middle school and worked hard to stop. So she's proud her daughter resisted peacefully until attacked.

“What gives you and Ashlee the strength to get through all this?” Winne asked McDowell.

“God. Family,” McDowell said.

Cox Media Group